Atacames Part III: ¡Vaya Jefferson!

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling super stiff. My first thought was ¨Ugh, I don´t want to run.¨But I dragged myself out of bed, got some breakfast, and was feeling a little better. We didn´t have a ton of time (our bus was leaving at 3:30) and it had started sprinkling. If I was going to run, I ought to do it quick.

I hadn´t run a fast 5k since the summer when I was only running around 20 miles per week, still recovering from my injury. I felt like, with the good training I´ve been doing recently, I had a good chance at a PR. One of my last weekends in the states, I had run 17:09, so I was shooting for better than that, or hopefully sub-17.

I was so rushed because of the rain that I just warmed up in my racing shoes. I was running on the now empty roads, so it should be a bit faster, I thought. I would run 800 meters out and 800 meters back three times and then a final, all out 200 meters. My goal pace would require me to run each 800 in about 2:45 (5:30 mile).


I went out in 2:24, 2:31 (4:55 mile). Until recently, this would have been a PR for the mile. I didn´t feel like I was running that hard, but when I saw the split, I got a little worried. I thought maybe I should just go for a 2 mile or 3k, but I kept on truckin.

On the second out-and-back, people started to shout things at me (¨corre! corre!¨). Some yelled ¨vaya Jefferson!¨which is a reference to Ecuador´s National star, Olympic race-walker Jefferson Perez. I can see how people mistake us. We do look so similar...

I´m sure that most of them were laughing at me and getting a kick out of this skinny, white kid passing cars and trike-taxis, but to me, the shouts were just cheering and that was encouragement. It only spurred me on to run faster.

As expected, my middle mile was slowest (5:23), but with the quick first mile, I was still under pace. The last mile I really pushed the pace and came through 3 milesin 15:36. The last 200 meters, I gave it all I had to come in at 16:07, a 31 second last 200 and a PR by more than a minute.

I had pretty bad blisters on my achillies from not wearing socks, so I kind of hobbled back to the room. I cooled down on the beach and came back and showered.


We grabbed lunch and then took a trike into town (walking was out of the question for me), got some ice cream and waited for the bus. Much to my joy, the bus only had about six people on it, and none of them were small children! Oh happy day! I took my own two seats so I could put my feet upand relax. What was even nicer was that we didn´t stop in Esmereldas to get more passengers, as I had expected.

Not only was the trip about two hours shorter, but it was infinitely more pleasant. If all bus rides were this nice, I would have no qualms with traveling like this all the time.

We arrived in Quito around 10:15 (only six and a half hours!) and took a cab back to the house. By 10:45, I was sound asleep.

All in all, a solid trip that actually made me like the country a lot more. And I got a sick 5k PR. 15 minutes, here I come.

And, most importantly, Phish is getting back together.